Rumor confirmed: Doctor Of Credit received a copy of the memo showing the new restriction. You cannot receive the bonus on a Chase Sapphire Card if you have received a bonus on any Chase Sapphire card in the last 24 months.

This morning on Reddit, a user shared their experience applying for the Chase Sapphire Preferred Card yesterday (August 27, 2017). They indicated that they already had the Chase Sapphire Reserve Card and had only opened 3 cards in the last 24 months so the application was not impacted by the Chase 5/24 Rule.

5/24 Rule: If you have opened a total of 5+ personal credit cards (and Capital One business cards) in the 24 months with any bank, Chase won't approve you for some of its products.

The applicant was not initially approved but called Chase to see if they could move some credit from another card so they could open the Chase Sapphire Preferred. The Chase representative did so and thought everything was fine until the system rejected it. She then told the applicant that as of August 27, 2017, Chase has instituted a new rule:

If you have a Chase Sapphire Reserve Card or Chase Sapphire Preferred Card open, you cannot open the other.

The Chase representative indicated that this was an automatic denial by their system that she couldn't override, but would see if there is anything she could do since the initial application was submitted prior to the rule change.

Since the original post, another Reddit user has commented that they experienced the same thing when they applied for the Chase Sapphire Preferred Card today.

I'd like to see more data points on this one before jumping to conclusions but, if this is true, it's just another restriction from Chase to make it harder to open their cards that earn valuable Ultimate Rewards cards.

You might wonder why a person would want both of these Chase cards. Well, if you want to add authorized users to a Chase Sapphire Preferred Card, you can do so for free. With the Chase Sapphire Reserve Card, it costs $75 per authorized user. If you want family members to help you earn points for a family vacation, it's much cheaper to add authorized users to the Chase Sapphire Preferred Card.

So, what does this all mean?

I'd hate to see Chase make it even more difficult to earn Ultimate Rewards. They're a great way to earn award flights and award stays at some awesome Hyatt properties.

At this point, it's too early to tell. It's not uncommon for customer service representatives to be misinformed. However, with the direction that Chase has been moving the last couple of years, I wouldn't be surprised to see this.

When you consider the fact that those who applied for the Chase Sapphire Reserve when it launched last year are just now seeing their annual fees hit, I wouldn't be surprised if Chase is trying to lock people into that card.

If you hear any new information on this, please let me know in the comments.